By Most Rev. Jean Marie Speich, Apostolic Nuncio to Ghana at the Apostolic Nunciature on Friday, March 3, 2017
It is true that we possess more than 4.600 Basic and Secondary Schools, Colleges and Universities in which only 25 percent of the students are Catholics.
We receive all. It is true that the Catholic Church owns more than 27 percent of the health structures in Ghana, between Clinics, Hospitals and Dispensaries. I can give you many other realities, but giving statistics and numbers, is useless and not really catholic. We have to give account only to God.
The contribution of the Catholic Church in Ghana cannot be reduced in numbers, because we deal with persons, persons with wonderful dignity regardless of their origins, tribes and religion.
A human person is the noblest being on earth. We believe that he is coming and going to God, for that reason we want to serve God through him in the best way.
After 2,000 years, the Catholic Church became, as Pope Paul VI said in New York before the United Nations, “an expert of humanity” by her unique nearness to the poorest and the needy through her numerous initiatives, charities, foundations, religious and lay people dedicating their life for the spiritual and human wellbeing of all, regardless of their religion.
It is of public knowledge that the Holy See is present in the most discreet and efficient way in complicated diplomatic negotiations, which come to the day light from time to time. The Holy See does not like it so much, preferring the humble efficiency to the stage.
One of the last well-known and spectacular example is the service offered by the Holy See to permit respectful relations between Cuba and the United States of America. Other negotiations are on the table in some parts of our troubled world.
Permit me, Mister President, to give you briefly information about some of the activities of the Holy See –not all of course- developed only in the past 10 days: a proposed formation in Rome promoted by Caritas International for volunteers.
Let me bring to your knowledge that the Catholic Archbishop of Kumasi, His Grace Gabriel Anokye is the President of Caritas Africa. He is Madagascar at the moment.
Coming back to the activities: the participation in Rome at the International Forum on Migration and Peace co-organized by the Pontifical Dicastery for the Service of Human Development, which is headed by His Eminence Cardinal Peter Turkson, noble son of Ghana; at the same moment, the same Pontifical Dicastery participated at the VI International Forum on Migration and Peace under the thematic: Integration and Development: from reaction to action; now inside the Vatican walls, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences organized a Workshop about the Human Right of water:
An interdisciplinary study about the central role of the public politic in the water politic; again in Rome, the Pontifical Institute for Arab Studies and Islamology gave the Georgetown Lecture on Contemporary Islam; in Rome again, the Music Festival promoted by the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music under the thematic:
The Encounter; in Cairo, Egypt, takes place the interreligious meeting between the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and the Al-Azhar al-Sharif Center for Dialogue under the thematic: The role of Al-Ahzar al-Sharif and the Vatican in containing the phenomena of fanatism, extremism and violence in the name of religion; and I want to end this list on 10 days of activities by the mention of the participation of the Holy See through the Pontifical Dicastery for the Service of Human Development in the Standing Committee of the John Paul II Foundation for Sahel, looking after the distribution of more than 37 million dollars to numerous charity projects destined for Sahel countries.
It will not be fair in this circumstance, Mister President, to omit to mention what is occurring in Ghana. Among the numerous and wonderful realities I want to underline the fantastic works done by the Catholic Church as member of the Ghana Conference of Religions for Peace and as member of the National Peace Council.
At more local level, I wish to mention only a few, because this speech has to come to an end, the marvelous and unique work done for example in the Volta Region: to reconcile some time ago the Nyonka and Alavanyo communities, and in the Northern Region, the Kukumbas and Namumbas; and for the same North, I congratulate the initiatives of the Satellite Peace-Building Center in Tamale, and of the Centre for Conflict Transformation and Peace Studies in Damongo. I urge the other Embassies to encourage and help them.
For all these reasons and many others, Mister President, we can say that the Catholic Church in Ghana is connatural to this society. She is a wonderful part of it and a bridge builder trying to overcome human weaknesses, useless and unhealthy differences in the utopia of contributing to building up a society which is expressed in the Ghanaian motto, more just and free.
Past January in his speech to the Diplomatic Corps, His Holiness Pope Francis spoke about peacekeeping by promoting justice, intercultural and interreligious Dialogue, a “culture of Mercy”. Coming back to Ghana’s motto: Justice and Freedom, His Holiness gives his appreciation for the Ghanaian peacekeepers all over the world.
After 31 years at the service of three different Popes: Saint John Paul II, Pope emeritus Benedict XVI, and now Pope Francis, and after serving in many countries and for many local Churches, I am able to deliver you the secret of the Pontifical Diplomacy given by the Cardinal Secretary of State, His Eminence Pietro Parolin, few days ago.
He said: “The Pontifical Diplomacy pulls its strength above all from the Gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ. She wants to favor relations of justice and harmony between nations, by means of instruments appropriate to the international law and at the light of her specific spiritual mission. The action of the Holy See is mainly oriented towards the construction of peace and promotion of the total human development, in the respect for the dignity of every human being and for its fundamental rights, the first one of them is the exercise of the freedom of religion”. Ghana, through some of the most competent of its citizens is participating in Rome and elsewhere to the promotion of these values.
I thank you Mister President and noble guests, for your patience. The speech was a bit long, but is given only once each few years. Enjoy this evening. May God bless the Republic of Ghana, its people and its President here present, His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo. May God help you, Excellency, to rule in justice, for freedom and prosperity. May God bless Pope Francis and the Catholic Church. Thank you.
